The outage left the agency “without access to the mission-critical systems needed to properly safeguard personnel and facilities, rendering the agency blind across the national capital region.”

The agency that man­ages the Pentagon Po­lice De­part­ment and also runs net­works and com­puters used the by the Of­fice of the Sec­ret­ary of De­fense ex­per­i­enced a “cata­stroph­ic net­work tech­no­lo­gic­al out­age” on Jan. 3, and it could take un­til Janu­ary 2015 to com­plete the re­pairs, an ob­scure doc­u­ment on the Fed­er­al Busi­ness Op­por­tun­it­ies web­site re­vealed

That doc­u­ment, pos­ted on May 2, dis­closed that the out­age ex­per­i­enced by the Pentagon Life Safety Sys­tem Net­work and Life Safety Back­bone left the Pentagon Force Pro­tec­tion Agency “without ac­cess to the mis­sion-crit­ic­al sys­tems needed to prop­erly safe­guard per­son­nel and fa­cil­it­ies, ren­der­ing the agency blind across the na­tion­al cap­it­al re­gion.”

The agency es­tim­ated it would take six to 12 months to “ef­fect re­pairs and to up­grade the net­work core to mit­ig­ate fu­ture out­age risks.” Re­pairs in­clude re­cov­ery of data after the cata­stroph­ic net­work tech­no­lo­gic­al out­age and up­grade and re­place­ment of switches and routers.

SRA In­ter­na­tion­al Inc. won a $56 mil­lion con­tract for the Life Safety Sys­tem Net­work in 2008 that ex­pired on April 30. The Force Pro­tec­tion Agency falls un­der the Wash­ing­ton Headquar­ters Ser­vice, which ex­ten­ded the SRA con­tract through Oct. 31, with a value of $7.3 mil­lion, and a four month op­tion through Feb. 28, 2015, with a total value of $11.4 mil­lion.

The sole source con­tract ex­ten­sion with SRA called for re­freshed hard­ware and soft­ware for the Life Sys­tem Safety Net­work, a new net­work design that min­im­izes single point fail­ure, in­clud­ing dual hom­ing, which re­duces the risk of fail­ure.

As the in­cum­bent on Life Safety Sys­tem Net­work con­tract, “SRA is the only known vendor who has ex­pert se­cur­ity-cleared per­son­nel that can im­me­di­ately ac­com­plish this ur­gent up­grade giv­en their ex­ist­ing know­ledge of the spe­cif­ic LSB tech­nic­al and ar­chi­tec­tur­al chal­lenges, and in-depth know­ledge of the ex­ist­ing in­fra­struc­ture to in­clude the known and po­ten­tial fail­ure points of an ex­tremely com­plex en­vir­on­ment,” the Wash­ing­ton Headquar­ters Ser­vice said.

The Pentagon has not yet re­spon­ded to a query sub­mit­ted Sunday on the gen­er­al cause of the out­age nor to a query earli­er Tues­day morn­ing on wheth­er or not it was caused by a hack­er.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) are threatening to block the spending bill—and prevent the Senate from leaving town—"because it would not extend benefits for retired coal miners for a year or pay for their pension plans. The current version of the bill would extend health benefits for four months. ... Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday afternoon moved to end debate on the continuing resolution to fund the government through April 28. But unless Senate Democrats relent, that vote cannot be held until Saturday at 1 a.m. at the earliest, one hour after the current funding measure expires."

Source:

PARLIAMENT VOTED 234-56

South Korean President Impeached

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

The South Korean parliament voted on Friday morning to impeach President Park Geun-hye over charges of corruption, claiming she allowed undue influence to a close confidante of hers. Ms. Park is now suspended as president for 180 days. South Korea's Constitutional Court will hear the case and decide whether to uphold or overturn the impeachment.

Source:

CLOSED FOR INAUGURAL ACTIVITIES

NPS: Women’s March Can’t Use Lincoln Memorial

1 hours ago

THE DETAILS

Participants in the women's march on Washington the day after inauguration won't have access to the Lincoln Memorial. The National Park Service has "filed documents securing large swaths of the national mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial for the inauguration festivities. None of these spots will be open for protesters."

Source:

2.1 PERCENT IN 2017

President Obama Boosts Civilian Federal Pay

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

President Obama on Thursday announced a pay raise for civilian federal employees of 2.1 percent come January 2017. He had said multiple times this year that salaries would go up 1.6 percent, so the Thursday announcement came as a surprise. The change was likely made to match the 2.1 percent increase in salary that members of the military will receive.

Source:

SHUTDOWN LOOMING

House Approves Spending Bill

20 hours ago

BREAKING

The House has completed it's business for 2016 by passing a spending bill which will keep the government funded through April 28. The final vote tally was 326-96. The bill's standing in the Senate is a bit tenuous at the moment, as a trio of Democratic Senators have pledged to block the bill unless coal miners get a permanent extension on retirement and health benefits. The government runs out of money on Friday night.